NORFOLK, Va.— Monday's scary scene involving Damar Hamlin's collapse sent shockwaves across the country. Some students at Lake Taylor High School sent good vibes to Hamlin and those surrounding him using a pen, paper and positive thoughts.
"I felt a lot of unease, kind of confusion," said Titans' head athletic trainer Kelly Bly.
"Scary and said just to see that happened to him," added Lake Taylor junior Kamya Nelson.
"It was kind of scary just seeing somebody fall out like that," sophomore Triston Skipwith said.
Those are just some of the emotions that hit many people following Hamlin's cardiac arrest during Monday Night Football. Bly, who is also a teacher at Lake Taylor, knows that feeling all too well. She's lost a student-athlete from cardiac arrest before. Given her past and her position as an educator, she worked to figure out how she could turn the situation into a teaching moment.
"We could do something really positive and constructive here at Lake Taylor to make this a learning experience, but also let them feel like kind of play a role," she said.
Kelly pitched an idea to her sports medicine class. All her students would need would be a writer's hand and a caring heart.
"I'm going to give you guys the opportunity to write a letter to anybody that you feel like would receive some impact from this," she told her class. "It could be to Damar Hamlin himself, it could be to his family, to friends, the medical staff, anyone that you kind of feel like you connect with and just kind of share it with them, something positive during this tough time."
Her students answered the call, covering the classroom with piles of letters bound for Buffalo and Cincinnati. Triston Skipwith isn't even in that particular sports medicine class, but he and a couple of his basketball teammates joined in to help the effort.
"There is probably a whole bunch of negative things, people replaying the video and all that stuff," he pointed out. "I'm pretty sure him and his family want to see some positive things, knowing that things are going to be OK."
"I just wanted to be positive and just write a letter, just to let him know that it was going to be OK," added Nelson, who is in the class and has aspirations of joining the medical field.
This group of Titans has kept a watchful eye on all of Hamlin's medical updates. They've discussed how the Bills' safety is taking steps in the right direction each day.
"That's very great," Skipwith said. "Seeing how fast and how well he's progressing and getting better and stuff, that's God. It's great, honestly."
"Tuesday when we first met it was a very somber moment," noted Bly. "Every day it's been a little bit more progress and easier to talk about because it does feel like it's kind of going on the uphill."
These are students more than 550 miles away from Buffalo, but they're doing their part to make an impact, hoping that a few strokes of a pen can lead to numerous brightened spirits.
"You never know what somebody's going through so you should just always be positive in any situation that you're in and try to maybe uplift somebody else if they're feeling negative," Skipwith pointed out.
"All can play a part," added Bly. "Even if we are here in our little bubble in Norfolk, Virginia, we're thinking about what's going on outside of just our scope."
Kelly tracked down the addresses of the Bills and Bengals and will be sending out the letters penned by her students shortly. On Friday, Hamlin had his breathing tube removed and is speaking on his own.
